by Catalina Camia, USA TODAY

by Catalina Camia, USA TODAY

Newark Mayor Cory Booker hasn't yet won a promotion to the U.S. Senate and doesn't have his sights on the White House.

The Democrat said "absolutely yes, unequivocally" that he has ruled out running in the 2016 presidential election or being the party's vice presidential nominee, Politico reported Thursday.

Booker is currently leading public opinion polls in the special Senate election in New Jersey to succeed the late Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg. "He is focused on winning New Jersey's Democratic Senate primary on Aug. 13," Booker campaign spokesman Kevin Griffis said.

Booker is one of the few mayors with a national following, through his social media and TV presence and by garnering headlines when he saved a neighbor from a burning building. Booker's profile and "celebrity status" sparked Lautenberg's family to endorse Rep. Frank Pallone for the Democratic Senate nomination.

The Daily Beast had reported Booker was going to deliver a speech later this month in Iowa, home to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses. Booker told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he had canceled the speech when he declared his Senate candidacy and that nothing should have been read into an Iowa visit, since he has family in the state.